As one of my predecessors said, our objective is not to take people to heaven, but to prevent humanity from going to hell.

Sometimes I walk into a situation and I know somebody is going to provoke me - not maybe, I know he will provoke me - I know he will provoke me! And there are times when I simply refuse to be provoked. And the other times you have to use that superior knowledge to carry on at work without distraction, and don't allow yourself to be distracted.

The future of peace and prosperity that we seek for all the world's peoples needs a foundation of tolerance, security, equality and justice.

We have the means and the capacity to deal with our problems, if only we can find the political will.

I spent my youth and my most formative years in Africa. I left Africa when I was about 20, 21, and when Mo says a great African, I was really moulded by my African experience, although I had the good fortune that by the time I was 24 I had studied and worked on three continents - Africa, the US, and Europe.

A world government can intervene militarily in the internal affairs of any nation when it disapproves of their activities.

In all these cases, part of the reasons for failure perhaps was not analyzing and assessing the true nature of the crisis, the resources that would be required, and exaggerated expectation of what the U.N. troops can do.